Smart technology, such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and big data, provides consumers with a new level of convenience through various smart-connected products (SCPs). Although many experts have increasingly warned about the privacy vulnerability issues of various SCPs, consumers often underestimate privacy risks when adopting smart technology. Accordingly, this dissertation presents a literature review and three empirical studies that examine the privacy problems and suggest new concepts and models for a deeper understanding of the privacy suspension phenomenon. The first chapter reviews the literature related to the privacy suspension phenomenon by integrating the antecedents of consumers' privacy concerns. New concepts of privacy concerns, such as active and inactive privacy concerns, are suggested along with multiple propositions for the proposed privacy suspension theory, which extends the dimension of ambivalence toward trust and distrust regarding smart technology. The second chapter presents the proposed privacy–common good trade-off model and three assumptions related to privacy trade- offs, privacy reduction, and anchoring effects in the sustainable smart-connected car context. This study also discusses the relationships between governments, companies, and consumers regarding the effects of the common good of sustainability and government subsidies. The third chapter evaluates the mediation effects between sustainability, trust, privacy concerns, disclosure intentions, and purchase intentions when purchasing sustainable smart-connected cars based on the proposed sustainability–trust–behavior model. Finally, the fourth chapter provides a practical solution to resolve privacy suspension issues using the design science research approach. This study proposes privacy information type characteristics to evaluate SCPs' tailored data collection capabilities, visualizing them through a spider diagram design method with nudges. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation discusses the consumer privacy suspension phenomenon when adopting smart technology. The first chapter summarizes existing studies regarding privacy concerns, trust, distrust, and ambivalence in adopting technology. It also proposes new concepts of privacy concerns and outlines the unique relationship between consumer privacy concerns and ambivalence toward trust and distrust in smart-connected products, thus helping readers understand why consumers reduce privacy concerns when adopting smart technology. The second chapter presents an empirical study that examines how consumers trade their privacy for the common good of sustainability based on the proposed privacy–common good trade-off model and outlines three key assumptions in the sustainable smart-connected car context. The third chapter discusses the roles of sustainability and trust when consumers decide to disclose their personal information and purchase sustainable smart-connected cars based on the proposed sustainability–trust–behavior model. Last, the fourth chapter provides a practical solution to improve the current inefficient privacy notification systems that cannot apply to different smart-connected products due to various smart sensors collecting different types of personal information. Thus, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of the consumer privacy suspension phenomenon and how sustainability benefits can mitigate the conflicting interests between governments, companies, and consumers when adopting smart technology. In addition, the suggested practical solution using the design science research approach can help consumers make better privacy decisions when purchasing smart-connected products.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110588 |
| Date | 09 June 2022 |
| Creators | Choi, Daeeun |
| Contributors | Management, Lowry, Paul Benjamin, Wang, Alan Gang, Belanger, France, Adjerid, Idris |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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